Moore & Bell: We want Final Fantasy on the Xbox 360

By Spencer . July 16, 2007 . 3:34pm

Moore & Bell: We want Final Fantasy on the Xbox 360 images In two separate chats I asked Jeff Bell, Corporate Vice President of Global Marketing, and Peter Moore the head of Microsoft’s interactive entertainment division if they could have one third party Japanese franchise on the Xbox 360 which would they pick. Mr. Bell immediately responded with Final Fantasy. Mr. Moore let out an optimistic roar for Mario and I mentioned that since it’s Nintendo's that is probably not going to happen. After Mario, Mr. Moore picked Final Fantasy. Mr. Moore said he would “go all the way to Japan” to make Final Fantasy an exclusive on the Xbox 360 and he mentioned that there have been talks about bringing Square-Enix’s RPG series to the Xbox 360.

Mr. Bell seems more enthusiastic about seeing Final Fantasy on the Xbox 360. “I think now it’s very clear we are here to stay and that we are going to sell an awful lot of consoles globally. I don’t think we have to be quite as persuasive as we needed to in the past. You can see that with our line up that we have available now. We have a lot of third party exclusives and we are very proud of that. How far [would we go to bring Final Fantasy to the Xbox 360]? I think what we would like to do is convince anyone they are going to make more money by partnering with us than they will by spending the money developing and partnering with the entire industry.” If part of Final Fantasy XIII came on the Xbox 360 Mr. Bell said, “that would be a start”.

In a candid chat Mr. Bell acknowledges that the Xbox 360 isn’t selling well in Japan, even though there are RPGs on the console. “We are not happy with our situation in Japan. We’ve got a great team though. Sensui-san is doing a great job at making things better. We launched Blue Dragon and our sales have doubled. Now granted that’s a thousand a week, so that’s not enough. We are at least we are making progress. We hope that we double again when we do Lost Odyssey. We are very happy about Trusty Bell or Eternal Sonata coming to the platform. What we got to do is win over the confidence of the third party publishers that they can bring the great titles that are Japanese inspired and continue to grow the install base and have a console for everyone.”

Besides Blue Dragon, Eternal Sonata and Lost Odyssey the Xbox 360 has other RPGs coming out this year including Bioware’s Mass Effect.

I asked Mr. Moore if he felt that Lost Odyssey is a competitor to Final Fantasy XIII. “I think Sakaguchi-san certainly has a competitive spirit in his mind. I think he would like to see it do very well and compete with Final Fantasy. But we needed Lost Odyssey to be Lost Odyssey. I think they (the Playstation crowd) are going to look at Lost Odyssey as is in the spirit of Final Fantasy.”

On other Xbox 360 RPGs I asked Mr. Moore about the status of Blue Dragon 2 and he said, “It’s a rumor”. On Infinite Undiscovery Mr. Moore said, “I haven’t seen the game recently, but think it’s going well. I haven’t been to Japan in awhile. I’ll be in Japan in September and I’ll probably have a look at it then. ” Will we get to see it September? “I’ll know more I get there.”

TAGS: Final Fantasy, Interviews, Microsoft, Xbox 360

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M'Buma

The actual rumour was that Blue Dragon 2 would be released on the nintendo DS because of the weak sales of the XBOX 360, wasn't it?

Edward Smith

You know, spencer, I thought about it after I asked you to keep an eye out for Infinite Undiscovery at E3: it was enveiled at TGS 2006, so it would make sense for it to reappear at the same event. We'll just have to wait, I suppose :(

Spencer

@Edward - I was curious about Infinite Undiscovery myself so I was glad to get the question in. We might see more of it in September, but I bet there is going to be a strong focus on Lost Odyssey since that's the next big RPG project.

Pike

Blue Dragon can be a success with or without Japan sales. Dead Rising and Lost Planet non japanese sales were fine with Capcom.

Mario over Final Fantasy???

I don't consider Mario a system seller anymore, but he does bring in the money with all the non platforming games.

Mario:OGGOD

FF on 360 would sell like KRAZY!

Mario is the OG.... never knock the god father.

Mike

This would sell buckets and would no doubt be a huge hit all over the world. I don't care if MS has to dig deep into it's piggy bank for this game, make it so Peter Moore.

The Dav3

Ok people, but you have to remember the tight relationship Sony has with Square and how important FF is to the success of the PS3. Sony is not going to let this one go, just like they have held onto MGS4. MS can try all they want but generally with Square: 3rd place in Japan = no games from Sqaure. Plus, I don't think MS's gaming division has the funds to get FF on their platform, what with the billions the company has recently lost on hardware problems alone, plus the other moneyhats they have thrown at AC6, Katamari, and GTAIV.

Plus that whole problem of Sony owning a small portion of Square. Point is, its going to take one hell of a money hat (try 200 mill at least) to even get the game on the platform, and that STILL will not change the fact that it will still be on the PS3 and will most likely be better on it, as it is being built for that system. I think that they want this game because they think it will change the outcome in Japan, well they are going to need it as an exclusive if they even want it to have a minimal impact in Japan. I have heard the Square execs speak about FF and how important it is to the PS3, MS will probably get their own FF spinoff....if they get anything at all. You can't buy everything, not even MS.

Enix_XIII

Yes but you forget, Final Fantasy XIII was built on a Multiplatform Engine.

wake

FF13 on the ps3 was built on a proprietary white engine that uses the 7 spes out of the 8 in the ps3. that said, its never going to the 360.

John Beaumont

According to the list of games in development, anyone can see that Square Enix has more games in development for the Xbox 360 than any other home system. That makes me think Square Enix has a great relationship with Microsoft.

Haden C

When you look at what is said in this interview, it sounds like there is actually a chance that Final Fantasy will be released exclusively for the Xbox 360.

I think there is a chance that will happen, too. Square Enix didn't even show Final Fantasy 13 at this years E3 show. That is BAD for Sony, and it makes you wonder.

We need to keep in mind that the Playstation 3 has sold very poorly all over the world, including Japan. That means Square Enix will need to rely on the worldwide sales to generate revenue for Final Fantasy 13. When it comes to worldwide sales, there are about 8 MILLION more Xbox 360 owners than Playstation 3 owners, and I think that is the reason why Final Fantasy 13 will be released for Xbox 360, and probably PC.

angu

I wish ffXIII would get an xbox360/pc release but I just don't see that happening. Maybe a 360 release, but PC owners have a very different taste in rpgs I and I'm sure squeenix is aware of that. The White Engine is a multiplatform anyway, so porting to the 360 would not be much of an issue. At this stage in either console's lifetime they're pretty much equal (although the ps3 will probably take charge towards the end). Speaking from experience, an engine may "use" multiple cores but using them efficiently is another ball game. Multiprogramming is a very difficult topic in any computer development setting so saying because a game uses "7 of 8" SPEs doesn't mean it can't be ported to 360...

Fred Westbrook

wake Says:

July 17th, 2007 at 4:27 am
FF13 on the ps3 was built on a proprietary white engine that uses the 7 spes out of the 8 in the ps3. that said, its never going to the 360.
**************************************************

The White Engine is open platform as hinted by Sakaguchi and Gamespot. That means it can adapt to any console whether its the 360. The Wii. Or even the DS.

EternityIII

Haden C Says:

July 17th, 2007 at 8:04 am
When it comes to worldwide sales, there are about 8 MILLION more Xbox 360 owners than Playstation 3 owners, and I think that is the reason why Final Fantasy 13 will be released for Xbox 360, and probably PC.
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By the end of 2007. The 360 should be at 17 million to 18 million worldwide. And thats with a price cut in hand.

kaki

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Swat

You guys should try to Wiki Final Fantasy 13.

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The game runs on the White Engine, an all-new exclusive seventh generation game engine built for Square Enix's future games. Both the engine and the game were originally slated to be used with the PlayStation 2 but were later moved to the PlayStation 3.[13] The engine handles advanced audio processing, cinematic cut-scene transition, physics effects calculations and special effects rendering. The White Engine reportedly uses 4 of the 6 developer-available synergistic processing elements (SPEs) of the Cell processor to achieve near-pre-rendered CGI quality in realtime.[14]

Hmm

Square bought the Unreal 3 Engine to make Last Remenant which is Multiplatform. SO why should they do this?? The WHite Engine is Specially for the PS3..

pangsai

that guy is an asshole, if square ports ff to ps3, i will never be a ff fan anymore, i will stop buying all their stupid games... same with my friends, fuck DMC... you guys have to remember that the playsation always had a rough start, but you guys just wait and see, the PS3 will out do FUCKbox 360

Tony

It's hilarious reading these posts by people claiming they'll stop buying games because they also appear elsewhere. DMC is not suddenly a 360 exclusive title.

I was playing FF in the days when it was only on Nintendo systems and people bitched and complained when the PlayStation got the next one. Guess what happened? People just went and bought a PlayStation and FFVII sold like crazy.

A lot of complaining over nothing.

Tony

The White Engine has been pretty heavily impled (as evidenced in this thread) to not be PS3 only, by the way. Using UE3 could imply a lot of things... that they want to first debut the White Engine with FFXIII, that it's not ready to the extent necessary for Last Remnant, etc.